What is true of French, is it not true of Arabic? The Amazigh writer Mohamed Boudhan, written by the Arab writer Abdelali Wadjiri
Language and identity between Oudghiri and Kateb Yacine
Dr. Abdelali El Oudghiri is a Moroccan writer, researcher and academic known for his fierce defense of the Arabic language, and his strong opposition to French domination in Morocco. He is the author of many books related to the subject of the Arabic language and its defense. In the context of this defense of Arabic and anti-Francophonie, Dr. Oudghiri strongly criticizes the famous saying of the Francophone Algerian writer Kateb Yassine, in which he says that the French in which he writes is a "war booty". This response to Yassin was published in July 2022, on the website of the Ibn Ghazi Center for Research and Strategic Studies (click here), in a two-part article (1, 2) under the title: "Who was the spoil really, Kateb yassin
?"
What is true in French may be true in Arabic:
Professor Oudgiri tries to convince us, in his criticism of Kateb Yassin’s position on the French language, that the latter, as indicated by the title of the article, is not one of the spoils of the French language, as he expressed it when he said that it is “a spoil of war”, but rather it is the one that spoiled him. When he became its writer and servant, he recruited her to fight against Arabism and Islam, as the colonial France itself wanted and did in Algeria. For this reason, Kateb Yassin and his ilk are, as Mr. Oudgiri says, “the custodians of the Francophone Orthodox temple and its deacons whose interests intertwined with his interests, and their existence and destiny were linked to his existence,” living “their whole lives enlisted in his service and offering sacrifices to his doorstep.” Because of the French language, Yassine remained, as Professor Oudghiri explains, bearing “the culture of wielding the sword over the common classical Arabic that France fought with all it had, […] ] especially after discovering the soft destructive machine known as 'Francophonie', which is the nickname that French language and educational policy later gained"; “So he spent the last third of his life stationed on the front of the war against Arabism and the Arab-Islamic existence, reviving the spirit of racism and tearing apart the bond that Islamic values have always worked to strengthen among the Arabs and Amazighs in the Maghreb.” Which is what Professor Oudgiri concludes with this disapproving question, which he addresses to Yassin: “Who was, then, right to be considered a war booty, O Kateb Yassin, you or the foreign language in which you said you were an exile? Were you able to free your consciousness, your mind, your thought, and your culture from this
?” deep exile
If it is true - and it is not - that the French language, as Professor Al-Wadgiri wrote, made Yassin a servant of this language, loyal to it and defending it, then his behavior would be no different from what Mr. Al-Wadghiri himself does when it made the Arabic language its servant and a fierce defender of it, And we are happy with her and in love with her... If it is true that Kateb Yassin and his ilk are “the guardians and deacons of the Francophone Orthodox temple,” they live “their whole lives as soldiers and offerings to his entourage,” then it will be true, and with the same logic and the same practice, that Mr. Wadghiri and his ilk are “ For the Arab orthodox temple and its deacons, they live “their whole lives, enlisted in his service and offering sacrifices to his doorstep.” The evidence for this is that he wrote several defensive books in which he presents this service, loyalty, love and offering..., while what Yassin provided for the French - always according to the logic of Dr. Wadghiri - did not exceed creative writings of poetry, novel and theater. Why does Mr. Oudghiri allow for himself what he forbids others, and permit Arabic what he is forbidden from French? Does this contradiction not express an inflated pan-Arab narcissism, whose exaggeration makes it transcend
? logic and reality, seeing only itself as the center of the world
But the French did not make Yassin pretend to be French:
And if it is also true - and it is not - that Kateb Yassin was antagonizing Arabic for his service to French, then his behavior would be no different from what Mr. Wadghiri himself does when he opposes Amazigh and Darija in the service of Arabic so that it does not have a competitor within the national languages. But Yassine was rejecting Arabic as an Algerian defending the language of the Algerian people, which is Tamazight and Darija, not because he is "French" defending the French language for the French-Algerian people. As for Mr. Oudghiri, and other Arabists, they defend Arabic as the language of the Arab people, Moroccan and Algerian, using the Arabic language as a tool for national Arabization and identities, and the sexual transformation of Moroccans and Algerians from their Amazigh African race to an Arab Asian race. Therefore, in their defense of Arabic for the sake of this national Arabization and sexual transformation, they are not only practicing the Arabization of the tongue, but the Arabization of the human being by converting him sexually to a person of the Arab race.
Yacine’s writer did not use French to turn the Algerian people into a French people, but rather used it in order to explain it accurately and clearly when he said while acknowledging that it was a colonial language: “Francophone is a political machine of neo-colonialism, which perpetuates our dispossession. But using the French language does not mean that we are agents of a foreign power. I write in French to tell the French that I am not French.” As for you, the Arabists, you use Arabic to tell the real Arabs that you are Arabs like them, expecting from them a reward for getting rid of your “barbarism” and your true and original identity. But these real Arabs reply to you that you are just fake and forged Arabs, impersonating and practicing falsehood. And this is the difference between you and Kateb Yacine: he employs French to prove his Amazigh African identity and defend it against France, which was seeking to swallow it and dissolve it in its French affiliation. As for you, Arabists, headed by Professor Oudgiri, you employ Arabic to eliminate the Amazigh African identity of Moroccans and Algerians, and to attach them to a forged and plagiarized Arab identity. Therefore, when Kateb Yassin says that French is a war booty, he means that thanks to this language, he has an identity awareness of his original Amazigh affiliation, and he realizes that he is neither French nor Arab. Were it not for the French language, he would have continued to consider himself “Arab” as he thought, as he belonged to an Arabophone family, where the criterion for distinguishing between “Arab” and Amazigh was the language standard, as is the case with us in Morocco. As for the Arabic language, regarding the relationship to identity awareness, and unlike French, it falsifies this awareness by making its owner believe that he is “Arab,” and that it is his duty to fight Amazigh so as not to disturb his false Arab identity awareness. Therefore, when Kateb Yassin says that French is a war booty, he means that thanks to this language, he has an identity awareness of his original Amazigh affiliation, and he realizes that he is neither French nor Arab. Were it not for the French language, he would have continued to consider himself “Arab” as he thought, as he belonged to an Arabophone family, where the criterion for distinguishing between “Arab” and Amazigh was the language standard, as is the case with us in Morocco. As for the Arabic language, regarding the relationship to identity awareness, and unlike French, it falsifies this awareness by making its owner believe that he is “Arab,” and that it is his duty to fight Amazigh so as not to disturb his false Arab identity awareness. Therefore, when Kateb Yassin says that French is a war booty, he means that thanks to this language, he has an identity awareness of his original Amazigh affiliation, and he realizes that he is neither French nor Arab. Were it not for the French language, he would have continued to consider himself “Arab” as he thought, as he belonged to an Arabophone family, where the criterion for distinguishing between “Arab” and Amazigh was the language standard, as is the case with us in Morocco. As for the Arabic language, regarding the relationship to identity awareness, and unlike French, it falsifies this awareness by making its owner believe that he is “Arab,” and that it is his duty to fight Amazigh so as not to disturb his false Arab identity awareness. He was also believed to belong to an Arabophone family, where the criterion for distinguishing between "Arab" and Amazigh was the language standard, as is the case with us in Morocco. As for the Arabic language, regarding the relationship to identity awareness, and unlike French, it falsifies this awareness by making its owner believe that he is “Arab,” and that it is his duty to fight Amazigh so as not to disturb his false Arab identity awareness. He was also believed to belong to an Arabophone family, where the criterion for distinguishing between "Arab" and Amazigh was the language standard, as is the case with us in Morocco. As for the Arabic language, regarding the relationship to identity awareness, and unlike French, it falsifies this awareness by making its owner believe that he is “Arab,” and that it is his duty to fight Amazigh so as not to disturb his false Arab identity awareness.
Professor Oudghiri says that Kateb Yacine died “on the testimony of: “I am neither an Arab nor a Muslim, I am an Algerian.” Which he sees as a result of “Yassin’s involvement in a fierce war against Classical Arabic, its culture, its people, and the religious, civilizational and historical values associated with it.” Even if this is true, the reason for this "war" will be that the Arabic language and its culture are used in North Africa to eliminate Amazigh as a collective identity for the peoples of this region. He was not fighting them as a language and as a culture, but rather he was fighting their uses to fight the original collective identity of the North African countries. His death on the testimony of: “I am neither an Arab nor a Muslim, I am an Algerian” is an expression of sound identity awareness, realizing that his identity is not determined by religion or Arabness, but rather by belonging to the Algerian land, which is an African Amazigh land.
? What language made the Maghreb "tongue cut", French or Arabic
Mr. Oudghiri asks Kateb Yassin denouncing: “What language was it worthy of you to consider as a booty and an asset in your life? Is it the language of your nation and your Islamic civilization in which your roots grew and your veins nurtured [...], or is it the language that turned you into an eternal captive with a tongue cut off? Once again, because of Arab alienation, ideological blindness, and the tyranny of Amazigh-phobe passion, Professor Oudghiri reverses the results of the relationship that links both Arabic and French to the reality of their use and communication in life. In his opinion, since Kateb Yassin is only fluent in French and is ignorant of classical Arabic, then he is thus "cut off the tongue", which it represents, as it is understood from the question of Professor Al-Wadgiri, the classical Arabic, that is, that Arabic that is only learned in school or something that takes its place. .
If Mr. Oudghiri means that someone who is fluent in French and is ignorant of classical Arabic, such as Kateb Yacine, remains “tongue cut off” because the French he is fluent in cannot communicate in his Maghreb country, in the street, in the restaurant, at the train station, in the café, in the market..., This is absolutely not possible and will never happen. Why? Because he does not need to use French in these Maghreb spaces, as long as he uses the language circulating in his Maghreb country, which is Darija - or Tamazight - which Kateb Yassin used to speak as an innate mother tongue. The French that he teaches thus constitutes a second tongue that is added to his common, innate and original tongue, without the consequence that she “cuts” his common tongue. That is why he considered it "booty", that is, an additional profit and gain.
But a person who is only fluent in the classical Arabic that he learned in school and is ignorant of any other language, such as Tamazight and Darija, cannot communicate with it in the street, restaurant, train station, café, and market... So he will actually become "tongue cut off", because the language he knows He masters it, which is standard Arabic, and does not exist in daily communication in life, after it lost, centuries ago, the function of oral communication to become a language used in writing only. It is thus a half-dead or half-living language, given that the language lives first and foremost by oral circulation and then secondly by writing and school. The case is that Arabic does not live only by this last means.
The result, then, is that someone who knows only classical Arabic is like a "tongue cut off" because he is unable to use it in oral communication because no one uses Arabic to communicate in life. This is what Professor Oudgiri calls us to be "tongue-cutters".
In addition to this result that classical Arabic leads to, when it makes its owner “cut off the tongue”, as she explained, it also cuts off, as in North African countries, the original Amazigh tongue of these populations, by adopting it to spread criminal Arabization with the aim of exterminating the Amazigh language and identity and transforming Amazighs into Arabs Forgeries.
Monotheism and Arabization between Islam and Colonialism:
Professor Oudgiri invokes a set of colloquial opinions as a reference and a “scientific” guide to explain his ready-made, and colloquial rulings as well, about Arabic, identity, colonialism and his French language... Among these colloquial opinions, on which he relies in his response to Kateb Yassin, is his certain judgment that Islam has “gave For Algeria and other countries and peoples that had the honor of embracing him, and he was not taken from them. He gave her everything and took nothing from her. He united her and united her internal and external diaspora with her Muslim sisters.
This monotheistic role of Islam is not a historical fact, fixed and certain, but rather a common public opinion among the Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa. It is a general opinion because it is based on the confusion between the doctrinal monotheism of Islam as a monotheistic religion opposed to and contradicting polytheistic beliefs, and the political monotheism that these Muslims, including Mr. Al-Wadjiri, attribute to Islam. Although the difference between doctrinal monotheism and political monotheism is great, and the first does not lead to the second and does not include it, as we may find non-Muslim peoples, but they are politically united, and Muslim peoples, but they are divided and politically contested. This is proven by the history of Muslims as evidenced by the existence of dozens of Islamic countries separated from each other, as well as wars and conflicts between groups of Muslims, which have characterized their history since the death of the Prophet (peace be upon him) until today, even though the same religion unites them and unites them ideologically.
If we take Morocco as an example, we note that the Moroccans were Muslims thirteen centuries ago. But this did not prevent the political divisions between them, countries and tribes, and Islam was not able to unite them and bring them together internally, as Professor Oudgiri claims. But the bitter truth that may shock him is that the first to unite the Moroccan state and the Moroccan tribes, reunite them and merge them under one authority, is French colonialism, not the Islamic religion. This does not mean that Islam is a religion of political division and division. Rather, it means that Islam is politically neutral, does not divide or blame. Rather, it is its political use that may make it a religion that unites or divides politically. The source of division and disagreement, for example, between Shiites and Sunnis is the political use of Islam by each of them to serve its own conflicting political goals and interests from the goals and interests of the other party.
Arabists invoke the warning against discrimination and the call for unity in an obsessive manner whenever it comes to the Amazigh right to rehabilitate it as the language of education, administration and judiciary... It is as if the source of all the fragmentation, division and conflicts experienced by the so-called Arab world is the Amazigh. Kateb Yassin, in his introduction to the book Tasadat Yassin: "Ait Menkalet Sings," described these Arabists, who reject Tamazight on the pretext of threatening national unity, as destroyers of unity. About them, he says: “Les fossoyeurs de l'unité, the destroyers of unity, warn us of the dangers of threatening national unity. It is the trick of the thief who claims to have stolen to cover up his crime. And he says in one of his recent conversations with the same writer, Tsa'dat Yassin: "On what basis do they want us to unite and build this unity, on the basis of lies and falsification of history?"
As for Islam giving everything to Algeria and not taking anything from it, this is also from the common vernacular opinions, which are not proven before research and analysis. Even if we assume that Islam, in terms of its teachings and principles, does not call for the Arabization of the countries in which it spreads and “taking” their identity, except that in its name, that is, through its political use, a great effort will be made to Arabize the Amazigh North African countries and “take” their collective identity, not to benefit them but to eliminate them. Islam has been used to eliminate the collective identity of the peoples of North Africa and replace it with an Arab identity, with many Islamic political justifications according to the periods and political contexts: once under the pretext of eliminating paganism and ignorance, and once on the claim that the Prophet is an Arab, and once on the claim that Arabic is the language of heaven, and once under the pretext of combating discrimination and racism, and once Claiming to thwart the colonial division scheme...
Recognizing the absence of any Arab affiliation before the French occupation:
The truest thing that came in Professor Oudghiri’s article is his saying, regarding Algeria, which is of course also true of Morocco: “No one, before the era of the French occupation, attributed anything of it to the Arabs alone or to the Amazighs alone, but to the countries that unite them.” This is a very beautiful thing. It is no longer Islam that unites the peoples, but the land to which these peoples belong. But most importantly, this land is the source of the collective identity of these peoples, regardless of their ethnic origins, Amazigh, Arab or Arab. If we know that this land is a Amazigh land, that is, "the land of the Amazighs", as the Arab history books say, then this collective identity of the peoples of these countries is Amazigh.
As for the strongest and most significant aspect of Professor Oudgiri's words, it is his assertion that no one before the French occupation attributed himself to the Arabs or the Amazighs, but only to the land. So if there was no purely Arab affiliation, nor purely Berber affiliation to Morocco and Algeria before the French occupation, how did these two countries, after this occupation, turn into an “Arab Maghreb”, and not an Amazigh Morocco or an Arab Amazigh if we assume the existence of these two elements side by side? I do not think that Professor Oudghiri, no matter how he tries to evade by evasion and interpretation, can deny that the term “Arab Maghreb”, which explicitly ascribes the countries of North Africa to the Arabs, did not appear until after France occupied Morocco. This confirms that it was France that carried out the largest and most dangerous Arabization process for Morocco and Algeria. Why is it bigger and more dangerous? Because the Arabization, in which Islam was used to spread it, as we have already explained, remained limited and confined to what is ethnic, pertaining to a group of individuals who claimed to be of Arab lineage or of “honorable lineage”. As for France, it did not care about the ethnic Arabization of individuals and spread the myth of “honorable lineage”, but rather focused its efforts on the political Arabization according to which the Moroccan state became Arab, with the resulting Arabization of the whole of Morocco as an Arab country, which is expressed by the term “Arab Maghreb” that began Its use in the forties of the last century, which was invented by the Maghreb after the political Arabization carried out by France had given its fruit.
Even the Arabic language was not fought by France, as Mr. Oudgiri claims, but rather preserved it and made it a language in which laws, citations and decrees are published in the Official Gazette alongside French, which gave it, for the first time in history, the status of an official language in the legal sense. Why did France preserve Arabic and made it an official language alongside French? Because Arabic is the only language that allows French to dominate and dominate because it is (Arabic) a half-dead or half-living language that is used in writing only and not in daily circulation, as previously mentioned, which makes it unable to compete with French, unlike Berber and Darija, which can in a short period of time. A quarter of a century, the French would be removed from their throne in Morocco if there was the political will to advance them, by rehabilitating them at school and raising them to the level of two languages for writing and teaching. We have already explained, in previous articles (see the topic: “French as a publisher of Arabism and anti-Amazigh”).
These are facts that Mr. Wadghiri does not believe and will not understand, because in dealing with the issue of language and identity, he proceeds from what is ideological, colloquial, common, and an apparent and external given. While the scientific facts are often hidden behind the apparent and sensory given.
Why does the writer Yassine bother the Maghreb intellectuals?
Kateb Yacine died a third of a century ago (in 1989), a period during which nationalist and pan-Arabist ideology declined significantly, and Tamazight made remarkable progress if the Amazigh language became constitutional and official in both Morocco and Algeria, which accompanied and resulted in a decline in the Amazigh-phobic tendency against Amazigh , whether with the authorities or Arab intellectuals. But despite all these political and ideological transformations, Kateb Yassin continues to intimidate and intimidate the Amazighs, and they are still fighting him, as Professor Oudghiri does, with the same old, rusty weapons (dismembering the nation, serving the colonial scheme, reviving tribal strife and ethnic tendencies...) that were It was used, between the seventies and nineties of the last century, in the face of the emerging Amazigh movement. Why does Yassin's writer alone "receive" such
exceptional attention?
Because Kateb Yacine did not come to Tamazight from Tamazight like Mouloud Maamari, or Ali Sedky Azaiko, or Ahmed Assid or Muhammad al-Shami, or Hassan Benaqiya... If these people, if they were fighters for the sake of Tamazight, this may seem a natural thing because they are originally Amazigh and speak Amazigh. Kateb Yassin came to Tamazight from Arabism, to which he believed he belonged as an "Arab" who spoke Arabic (Darija) for his "Arabic" family. This "Arab" environment in which he lived his childhood instilled in him early on, his hatred and contempt for everything that is Berber. About this stage of his life, he says: “What I knew about the Kabyles when I was young was all blasphemy. The Kabyle is like the Jew, a strange human being who does not resemble us. There were common expressions identifying his character: Leqbayel, leqbayel/Tous, tous/Lgemla ged Ifellus!” (The Kabyles all have lice the size of chicks.) It was expected, then, given the "Arab" environment. The Amazighfubi in which Kateb Yassin lived, is to be an “Arab” person who views Amazigh with Arab racial superiority and despises it as a backward dialect of the “backward” Berbers, to whom he does not belong because he is of “Arab” origin. But on the contrary, he will become one of the staunch defenders of Amazighness, and the fiercest opponent of Arabism, which he has always considered, in all his writings, speeches and positions, as an invasion, colonialism and usurpation of the worst and worst kind (see the topic: “When will Moroccan intellectuals do like the Algerian intellectual Kateb Yacine? ", within the book: "On the Amazigh Identity of Morocco", by clicking here or here). This is what embarrasses Professor Oudghiri: How can an “Arab” desperately defend the Amazigh when someone who still bears an Amazigh name - “The Oudgiri”, in reference to the famous “Loudagir” Amazigh tribe known as “Fekek” Moroccan Amazigh - Not friendly with Amazigh? This is what makes Yacine's writer annoy the Arab intellectuals more than all the activists of the Amazigh movement. He awakened awareness of the Amazigh identity at a stage when there was no Amazigh movement or Amazigh demands, and at the height of the dominance of Arab nationalism. This early and advanced Amazigh identity awareness is what explains why he named his son “Amazigh” in 1972, “that is, at a time when Amazigh names were not in circulation or used or even prohibited by the authorities because no one was using them. Kateb Yassin was therefore ahead of his time and ahead of his time. Concerning the awareness of the Amazigh identity" as a collective identity for North African countries. This position does not only annoy Arabist intellectuals, but may embarrass them when they notice that an "Arab" intellectual is
For there to be Amazigh activists who speak Amazigh, for these intellectuals who reject Amazighness, it is an acceptable and normal thing that does not bother them or worry them, because these activists are at least Amazigh in the first place, even if it is "deceived" by them. As for the presence of an Amazigh activist of “Arab” origin, this is what they cannot and cannot stand, because it proves to them that they are also Amazighs, but they are victims of false awareness. This embarrasses them, as I said, to the point where they feel ashamed of themselves. That is why they do not get tired, as Professor Oudgiri does, of trying to ridicule the positions of Kateb Yacine so that they feel that they were not mistaken when they reject Amazigh and defend the Arabism of North African countries. .
http://amazighworld.org/arabic/history/index_show.php?id=7143&fbclid=IwAR0TetptXxalpuxH3z72hfsy0io3pBbLWjAdX6FsYlahtZ4r6VOUXV7qQgU